et, on the other hand, presents in his letters a
chastened spirituality that is not compatible with the methods he
pursued when thinking only of the temporal advantages which might accrue
on any certain line of action. But it may be said that his letters
appear to date from the later period of his life, and after he had
founded the cathedral as an expiation of that sin of simony he appears
to have so deeply repented.

Yet in the earlier period, which we shall note, he was emphatically the
man of action, the typical administrator, who, mixing freely in the
political life of the times, was strengthening the position of the
Church, and gradually leading her up to that position, which she
ultimately gained, of Arbitress of Kings and Empires.

He had also a morbid belief in the power of money--he probably would
have agreed that "every man has his price," and his simoniacal dealings
with William Rufus, which procured his preferment to Norwich, afford
evidence of this weak trait in his character.

Herbert's birthplace is disputed, and, as Dean Goulburn remarked, this
is but natural: a man so justly celebrated would not, or, rather,
historians will not be content with one; so that though he cannot rival
Homer in that seven cities desired to be accredited each as his
birthplace, yet Herbert falls not far short, and this fact alone will
perhaps give some idea of his popularity during his life, and the
interest then aroused which has lasted down to our own times. From a
small pamphlet issued by the dean and chapter in 1896, and containing
extracts from the _Registrum Primum_, we learn that "In primis Ecclesiam
prefatam fundavit piae memoriae Herbertus Episcopus, qui Normanniae in
pago Oximensi natus." First Herbert, the bishop, of pious memory, who
was born in Normandy, in the district of Oximin (or Exmes).

This seems very credible, and the old monkish chronicler who was
responsible for the _Registrum Primum_ and its rugged Latin, may have
had authentic proof of the truth of his assertion. The manuscript dates
from the thirteenth century, and no considerable period, historically
considered, had then passed since Herbert had been one of the prime
movers of the religious and political life of the day.

Blomefield, the antiquary, attributed to him a Suffolk extraction, and
then again spoke of his Norman descent: thus agreeing in some measure
with the _Registrum Primum_. And again, another idea is that he was born
in the hundred